Ascendant's Rite (The Moontide Quartet) (28 page)

It did, and more with each passing moment. Each heartbeat was a blow striking his ribcage from within, while his sluggish blood seeped through him in weak pulses. He felt as if his heart were a child trying to be born. The pain peaked, but as it faded he could feel his consciousness slipping away, until there was just a small candle-flame of light and awareness before him, and voices speaking dimly.

Alaron? Alaron? Is that you? What’s he doing?

Cym? Ramon?
At first he was puzzled, because the cot was inside a circle, warded from the spirit-world. There shouldn’t have been any way for ghosts to reach him, yet here they were, his two most beloved friends . . .

Who else would it be?
Cym’s acerbic voice cut through the fog, and suddenly he could see her face, just as she’d been when he last saw her.
We’re with you, through thick and thin
.

Ramon smiled sardonically at him.
Hey, amici, what are you doing lying there?

I just had a drink of
—

A drink!
Cym snorted.
Never could hold your drink, could you!
She and Ramon reached down and pulled him upright. Ramon was in his legion battle-mage robes, just as he had been on the day he flew out to join the army. Alaron’s eyes stung to see them.

I love you guys!
he told them fervently.
If I’ve never said it before, I’m saying it now. I love you both!

Definitely been drinking,
Ramon chuckled.

Alaron ploughed on, despite the dizziness that slurred his words and mashed his thoughts.
I’ve met this girl! She’s so brave and steady, like a rock, but she’s tiny as a mouse and . . .

A stone mouse?
Cym giggled.
You’re hopeless, Al!

How are you both?
It’s been so long. I thought you were dead, Cym . . .

His two closest friends looked at each other, then back at him, their expressions sad.
I am dead
, Cym told him.
I was killed at the Isle of Glass.

I’m dead too
, Ramon put in conversationally.
The Inquisition thought I knew where you were, so they tortured me to death. I screamed for a week.

Alaron had just
known
this was what had happened.
I dragged my best friends into this and left them to die . . .

He watched as they stopped moving and became desiccated skeletons that collapsed slowly into a pile of bones and were gone in the mists that closed in around him.

Then his father was there, in his old bedroom in Norostein. Vannaton Mercer looked exactly as he had on the day he’d left for the Moontide; hopeful, worried to be leaving his estranged wife and his son behind, but filled with purpose to do what was needed to keep the family fed and housed.

Da!

Hello, Son.
Vann took his hand
. Easy there. Don’t cry: everyone dies.

But they were the best friends I’ve ever had
 . . . He looked up, heart in mouth.
Da, are you . . . are you also . . . ?

Vann nodded gravely.
The Inquisition were looking for you, and they found me. They were asking about the Scytale of Corineus, of all things!
You should have warned me, so I knew to take precautions.

Tears stung Alaron’s eyes.
I’m sorry! I know I should have told you, but we didn’t think we’d ever truly find it . . . we didn’t really believe in our hearts that it was all real.

You always were a fool, Alaron.
Vann’s face hardened.
I’m disappointed in you. Leaving your mother to die alone. You’ve let everyone down. You failed us all.

Sudden pain jabbed through Alaron, a knife that skewered his heart like meat on a spit, and he hung in the air, turning in agonised limbo while his father watched without sympathy.

Everyone dies, Son. Now it’s your turn.

The Valley of Tombs, Gatioch, on the continent of Antiopia

Zulqeda (Noveleve) 929

17
^th
month of the Moontide

Malevorn tried to intervene as Toljin launched himself at Huriya. He was sure she’d go down instantly, but somehow she held up, forcing the daemon – for Toljin was surely in the thrall of some kind of spirit – away with kinesis. Her shields held despite flashing deep red, buying them both time. She tried to attack it with her mind, but Malevorn knew mesmeric-gnosis wouldn’t work. The strongest daemons, those the Wizards avoided, were a collective mind, dozens or even hundreds of souls bound together in the aether, too complex to duel mentally. But they were still vulnerable to Wizardry, the Study dedicated to binding and controlling them.

And it just so happened that he was well-honed in that particular Study, Turm Zauberin’s star pupil. He lashed Toljin across the back with a spectral whip, designed to hurt the soul, not the body, and the daemon screamed, its back arching as it staggered, then it turned on him. Huriya scuttled along the wall like a rat seeking its hole. Toljin’s shapechanger body grew scale and horns, the jaw elongated and nails sprouted as the daemon got a grip on the body’s capacities. His knee-joints reversed with a sickening meaty crunch and fire kindled in his clawed hands as he stalked towards Malevorn . . .

. . . and stepped into the circle Malevorn had burned into the middle of the floor.

Malevorn shouted aloud and poured fresh energy into the circle, rekindling it with wizardry-gnosis, spells that were this time for confining a
daemon
, not a man. Then Huriya joined him, feeding the spell; Sabele had been a Wizard as well, and her aid tipped the scales. The circle lit up, and the daemon was confined.

Toljin hurled himself at the invisible boundaries, rebounding as if from a stone wall. He tried again and again, until he realised that he was truly penned there. Then he fell silent, and glowered at them both in turn. Malevorn could feel him mentally probing the circle.

Malevorn exhaled slowly while Huriya put her back against the far wall, panting and gasping, her eyes huge and frightened. ‘What went wrong?’ she asked. ‘Was it the ambrosia? Did we get the dose wrong?’

‘It’s possible, but I don’t think so.’

‘You can’t be sure!’ she declared, her voice impassioned, and he knew why: if the ambrosia potion had been right, then it couldn’t be blamed for this failure.

Which means that perhaps the ambrosia
can’t
cure Souldrinkers.

Huriya looked shattered. ‘This was our great hope . . .’ she said in a broken whisper. ‘How can it not work?’

Malevorn ignored her, his mind having gone beyond that particular question.
Never deal with what might have been
, his tutor once said.
Deal with what is.

There might be no cure for what I’ve become. My family may never be restored.
He almost screamed, but he made himself go on thinking.
So what have I created instead?

A daemon had possessed Toljin during his transformation: he knew about daemons . . . They had secret names that could be used to bind them and enslave them. His eyes widened, and so did his horizons, until they were limitless. They’d hoped to create a
willing ally
, but instead had created a
slave
: an Ascendant Dokken daemon slave.

A slave is so much better than an ally . . .

And if he could duplicate this experiment, he had the means to make many, many more . . .

Huriya was sitting blankly on the floor, as shattered as her dreams. The Dokken would never be welcomed as equals by the magi. They would never be other than what they were, and the hopes of all her many lifetimes were ash before her eyes.

She never saw his blow coming: a kinetic fist that left her senseless on the floor.

I know exactly what to do now, and I don’t need her to do it.

This is . . . utterly . . . perfect.

*

Mandira Khojana, Lokistan, on the continent of Antiopia

Zulqeda (Noveleve) 929

17
^th
month of the Moontide

‘
ALARON!
’ the voices chorused together, his name like a slap on his face, bringing him back from the very verge of oblivion.

His father’s voice. Cym’s and Ramon’s. The earlier conversation melted from his mind as he realised that he’d not been talking to their ghosts, but their memories.
Alive or dead,
I know they love me
. His mother’s voice spoke a warning, Ramita’s too, and he wrenched his awareness back from the brink: a dark shadow was diving at him, a venator, with Malevorn Andevarion on its back, a lance tipped with gnostic-fire gouging the air as it flashed towards him.

He rolled clear and came upright, saw a vast space open before him, teetered and regained balance. He was standing on the edge of a continent above a massive cliff. The sea was raging below. Beside him a waterfall flowed in a torrent, white water roaring into the void. Then he stared, for beneath the churning waves he could see the moon, its vast bulk sparkling copper and silver, close enough to touch, yet far beyond reach, warping his perspective. He stared at it as it rose through the water.

Then the shriek of the venator brought him back to the now as Malevorn hauled the winged reptile around in a spiralling arc, then dived towards him again, spears of light flashing through the air at him. He engaged shields and saw the light shatter against them, the blows shaking him, staggering him so that his heels hung over space, the emptiness behind him roaring, reaching—

He blasted back, but the venator came on and on, its jaws widening, and he shouted in fear and alarm as the edge of the cliff gave way and he was falling, spinning towards the moon as it rose from the waves in a vast cascade of water and light and . . .

. . . someone touched his hand: a small hand with tough skin and a strong grip, surer than the stones.

The moon burst like a bubble as he fell through it and then he was floating, soaring through the night sky, flying his
Seeker
beneath the stars towards the rising sun. Ramita was in the prow, her arms spread wide like the wings of a bird, and when she turned back to him she was laughing for joy.

Then she was gone, and there was someone else, larger, wrapped in a creamy-coloured robe, cowled and faceless. ‘Who are you?’ he shouted.

The man dropped his hood, revealing an ancient face, shaven-skulled, with an iron-grey goatee. ‘Are you worthy of her?’ the man asked in a penetrating voice that shivered through him.

It’s him . . . Meiros . . .
or how he imagined the man from Ramita’s descriptions.

Alaron set his jaw. ‘I’ll try to be.’

Unexpectedly – or not if it was his own imagination – the old mage grinned. ‘Fair enough. See that you are.’

Alaron’s heart began to pound again. ‘Sir! Is any of this real?’

Meiros snorted. ‘Of course not. It’s all in your head. But that doesn’t mean you can’t die here.’ He looked at him intently. ‘You’ll never be more than my shadow, lad.’

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Subconscious
. ‘I’m still going to do my best!’ he retorted.

‘Good for you, son,’ Meiros said. Or was it his father?

Then he was alone in the skiff, soaring at incredible speeds right into the heart of a rising sun. He had no control of
Seeker
, could only ride onwards as the heat kindled his clothes, wreathing him in smoke – and then the skiff caught fire. He yowled as the fire roared around him, caught in his hair, his clothes, his skin, as he soared on, a living comet that blasted into Sol’s core and exploded in a storm of white light and fire.

And he woke.

They were all with him: Ramita, Puravai, Corinea, and faithful Yash, who must have inveigled his way in while he slept. His face whipped around the room, caught the after-images of Meiros and his father as they faded from view. Ramon and Cym, too. And his mother, whole and unburnt . . .

Ramita squeezed his hand. ‘You made it,’ she breathed.

‘Welcome back, Brother Longlegs,’ Puravai said with a smile. Corinea and Yash just looked at him, her with cool analysis, he with awe.

He took a deep breath, and kindled the core of his gnosis, the little flame inside him. Around it, his gnostic aura reformed, an image akin to Sivraman, four-armed and clothed in all aspects of the gnosis. It shone so brightly he could barely look.

I did it.

I’m an Ascendant.

11

Manoeuvre

The Katlakoz, or Javon Rift

The Katlakoz has played a vital part in the development of Javon. The desert below the Rift is the summer hunting ground of the nomadic Harkun, a northern Keshi people who dwell in the wilds east of Halli’kut throughout winter, the growing season, farming and raiding while the weather is cool. In the Keshi summer they retreat through the mountains and live off the massive horse and cattle herds of the lands below the Rift.

S
ISTER
G
ULSEPPA,
S
OLLAN
S
CHOLAR,
J
AVON, 722

Brochena, Javon, on the continent of Antiopia

Zulqeda (Noveleve) 929

17
^th
month of the Moontide

Governor Tomas Betillon stepped from the dark stateroom to the bright balcony overlooking the palace parade ground. Trumpets blared, then fell silent. The two legion commanders were with him; Kirkegarde Grandmaster Lann Wilfort was rubbing at his scarred face, while stolid Sir Roland Heale just stared at the massed ranks of the Dorobon legion he was leading east, to Forensa. Heale wasn’t happy; he wanted to wait for reinforcements.